Karin Slaughter - Fallen

Boyd had to clear his throat again before he could speak. “I hear Yellow’s been encroaching down the highway. You should talk to Ling-Ling over in Chambodia.” Will didn’t recognize the name, but he knew that Chambodia was the term used to describe the stretch of Buford Highway inside the Chamblee city limits. It was a mecca for Asian and Latino immigrants. “You can’t go straight to Yellow. Not without an invitation. Tell Ling-Ling Spivey said keep it on the DL.” The down low—don’t tell anyone. “Watch your back. Sounds to me like this thing is getting out of hand.”

“Anything else?”

Will saw Boyd’s mouth move, but he couldn’t make out the words. Will asked the guard, “Did you hear what he said?”

The guard shook his head. “No idea. Looked like ‘amen’ or something like that.”

Will checked Amanda’s reaction. She was nodding.

“All right.” Boyd’s tone indicated they were finished. His eyes followed Amanda as she got up from the chair. He asked, “You know what I miss the most?”

“What’s that?”

“Standing when a lady enters the room.”

“You always had good manners.”

He smiled, showing his busted teeth. “Take care of yourself, Mandy. Make sure Evelyn gets back home to her babies.”

She walked around the table and stood a few feet from the prisoner. Will felt his stomach clench. The guard beside him tensed. There was nothing to worry about. Amanda put her hand to Boyd’s cheek, and then she left the room.

“Christ,” the guard breathed. “Crazy bitch.”

“Watch it,” Will warned the man. Amanda may have been a crazy bitch, but she was his crazy bitch. He opened the door and met her out in the hallway. The cameras hadn’t been focused on her face, but Will could tell now that she had been sweating inside the tiny, airless room. Or maybe it had been Boyd who brought out that reaction in her.

The two guards were back on point, standing on either side of Amanda and Will. Over her shoulder, he saw Boyd being duck-walked down the hall in his hand and leg shackles. There was only one guard with him, a small man whose hand barely wrapped around the prisoner’s arm.

Amanda turned around. She watched Boyd until he disappeared around the corner. She said, “It’s guys like that who make me want to bring back Old Sparky.”

The guards gave off deep belly laughs that echoed down the hallway. Amanda had been pretty soft on Spivey and she had to let them know it was all for show. Her act in the tiny room had been pretty convincing. Will had been momentarily fooled, even though the one time he’d heard Amanda ask about the death penalty, her response had been to say that the only issue she had with it was they didn’t kill them fast enough.

“Ma’am?” one of the guards asked. He indicated the gate at the end of the hall.

“Thank you.” Amanda followed him toward the exit. She checked her watch, telling Will, “It’s coming up on four o’clock. We’ve got at least an hour and a half back to Atlanta if we’re lucky. Valdosta is two and a half hours south of here, but it’ll be closer to four with traffic. We’ll never make it in time for a visit. I can pull some strings, but I don’t know the new warden and even if I did, I doubt he’d be foolish enough to yank two men out of maximum security that late at night.” Prisons ran on routine, and anything that changed that routine brought the risk of sparking up violence.

Will asked, “You still want me to go through my case files on the investigation?”

“Of course.” She said it like there had never been any question that they would talk about the investigation that led to Evelyn Mitchell’s forced retirement. “Meet me at the office at five tomorrow morning. We’ll talk about the case on the drive down to Valdosta. That’s about three hours each way. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour each to talk to Ben and Adam—if they’ll talk at all. That’ll put us back in town by noon at the latest to talk with Miriam Kwon.”

Will had almost forgotten about the dead kid in the laundry room. What he clearly remembered was that Amanda had skated over the fact that she knew Boyd Spivey well enough for him to call her Mandy. Will had to assume that Ben Humphrey and Adam Hopkins were on the same familiar terms, which meant that yet again Amanda was working her own case within the case.

She told him, “I’ll make some calls to parole in Memphis and Los Angeles to reach out to Chuck Finn and Demarcus Alexander. All we can do is send them a message that Evelyn’s in trouble and we’re willing to listen if they’re willing to talk.”

“They were all very loyal to Evelyn.”

She stopped at the gate, waiting for the guard to find the key. “Yes, they were.”

“Who’s Ling-Ling?”

“We’ll get to that.”

Will opened his mouth to speak, but the air was pierced by a shrill alarm. The emergency lights flashed. One of the guards grabbed Will by the arm. Instinct took over, and Will jerked away from him. Amanda had obviously had a similar reaction, but she didn’t stop there. She ran down the hall, her heels popping against the tile floor. Will jogged after her. He rounded the corner and nearly knocked into her when she came to a dead stop.

Amanda didn’t speak. She didn’t gasp or cry out. She just grabbed his arm, nails digging through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.

Boyd Spivey lay dead at the end of the hallway. His head was turned at an unnatural angle from his body. The guard beside him was bleeding from a large slit in his throat. Will went to the man. He dropped to his knees and pressed his hands to the wound, trying to stanch the flow. It was too late. Blood pooled onto the floor like a lopsided halo. The man’s eyes locked on Will’s, filling with panic, and then filling with nothing at all.

CHAPTER FIVE

FAITH SLOWED THE MINI AS SHE NEARED HER HOUSE. IT WAS past eight o’clock. She had spent the last six hours going over and over what had happened at her mother’s house, saying the same thing again and again, as her lawyer, her union rep, three Atlanta cops, and one special agent from the GBI asked questions, took notes, and basically made her feel like a criminal. On some level, it made sense that they believed Faith was wrapped up in whatever had gotten her mother kidnapped. Evelyn had been a cop. Faith was a cop. Evelyn had shot and killed a man. Faith had shot two men—two possible witnesses—seemingly in cold blood. Evelyn was missing. If Faith had been on the other side of the table, she might’ve been asking the same questions.

Did she have any enemies? Had she ever taken a bribe? Had she ever been approached to do something illegal? Had she ever taken money or gifts to look the other way?

But Faith wasn’t on that side of the table, and no matter how much she racked her brain, there was no reason she could think of that anyone would want to take her mother. The worst part about being trapped in the interrogation room was that every minute that ticked by reminded Faith that five able-bodied officers were wasting time in an airless interrogation room when they could all be out looking for her mother.

Who would do this? Did Evelyn have enemies? What were they looking for?

Faith was just as clueless now as when the interrogation began. She pulled the car up to the curb in front of her house. All the lights were on, something she had never allowed in her life. The house looked like a Christmas decoration. A very expensive Christmas decoration. Four cars were parked in the driveway. She recognized Jeremy’s old Impala that he’d bought from Evelyn when she’d gotten the Malibu, but the two trucks and black Corvette were new to her.

“Shhh …,” she shushed Emma, who was getting antsy now that the car had stopped. Defying all laws and basic common sense, Faith had put Emma in the front seat beside her. The drive from Mrs. Levy’s was just a few minutes, but it wasn’t laziness so much as neediness that made Faith want to keep her child close. She picked up Emma and held her tight. The baby’s heart beat a soothing staccato against her chest. Her breathing was soft and familiar, like tissues being pulled out of a box.